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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

So my wife and I were discussing recently possibly moving - mostly because we want to get away from an a$$hole neighbour who hears noises/talking when they aren't there and seems to think he can boss us around.

The problem however is that moving right now would be inconvenient, for a number of reasons.

#1. We have a newborn baby. And exhausted. Sleep is valuable to us.

#2. My wife is in law school and that keeps her very busy from September to May roughly.

#3. It is currently July, and July and August are the hottest / most humid months of the year.

I suppose we could hire movers to do all the work for us, however since neither of us are in the habit of hiring movers, doing it ourselves is our normal routine. Thus it makes sense just to wait.

After all movers don't unpack and organize everything once you are settled in to your new home.

Which got me thinking... What is the best time of year to move into a new home in Toronto?

Well, lets start with the following graph, which specifically shows temperatures for Toronto Island (which is slightly cooler than the rest of the city thanks to the Lake Cooling Effect).

In addition to your personal comfort, the temperature also plays a big role in trying to get friends to help you move. Your list of friends willing to show up and help you move will likely be cut short if it super hot or super cold outside.

The graph shows July and August are the hottest months of the year, so lets scratch those off the list right away as being "too hot" to do strenuous exercise like moving.

Another problem with July and August is that is the time of year college/university students move in, which means you might also be competing with them for rental space if you are in the apartment market.

The chart also shows that December, January, February and March are the coldest times of the year, with the average temperature (the black line) being below 0 most of that time. So lets remove them from the list as well.

Another problem with December is that many people are busy with Christmas / various holidays, and thus that makes a bad time of year to move regardless of temperature.

Imagine moving in on January 1st, New Years Day... Don't expect any help from friends with the moving process, they are probably all sleeping off a hangover, sleeping in, whatever.

What about Rain?

It might surprise you that in terms of volume it usually rains more in August than any other month of the year, but that volume is on average during 9 days of the month.

April and May however have on average 12 rainy days for each of those months.Chance of Rain/Snow on the Day you move in...

January - 48% of Snow Day

February - 46% of Snowy Day

March - 42% of Snowy Day

April - 40% of Rainy Day

May - 39% of Rainy Day

June - 30% of Rainy Day

July - 29% of Rainy Day

August - 29% of Rainy Day

September - 33% of Rainy Day

October - 32% of Rainy Day

November - 42% of Rainy Day

December - 45% of Snowy Day

Thus June arguably ends up being the best time of year if you want to avoid the rain. August is good too, but way too hot. June is still pretty warm however so some people might want to avoid that month.

This makes you realize why so many people get married in June, because they want to avoid rain on their wedding day and have a stereotypical warm and sunny "June Wedding".

September and October are not bad either for rain, and the temperatures are certainly more comfortably average.

If you have children and they are in school, moving to a new school could make September a bad time to move - not so bad if your new home is still in the same neighbourhood and your kids will still be going to the same school.

November starts getting both colder and rainier, so lets knock that off the list right now.

My personal conclusion?

October is arguably the best time of year to move into a new home. September is 2nd best. June is 3rd best.

Other Factors

This varies for many people, but lets list a few other factors people might also have to worry about.

Work obligations keeping you busy.

Difficulty booking off vacation time to pack everything / move.

Family / friend obligations.

You already planned a vacation during that time period and don't want to cancel.

Bad time of the year due to miscellaneous personal or financial reason.

* In recent years there have been horror stories of movers who held people's personal belongings hostage and demanded a higher amount of money - effectively extorting the client.

eg. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/man-charged-after-toronto-moving-company-allegedly-defrauded-extorted-customers-1.4139985 is just one news story about people getting ripped off by crooked moving companies.